A typical wireless communication device (e.g. a mobile phone) of today comprises an application processor and a modem subsystem.
The application processor may typically be a system on a chip (SoC) adapted to support applications running in an environment provided by a mobile operating system. Example tasks that may be supported by the application processor include memory management, graphics processing and multimedia decoding.
The modem subsystem is typically operating independently from the application processor and may be implemented on a separate chip. The modem subsystem typically supports the cellular communication access of the wireless communication device and all related processing (e.g. radio frequency processing, baseband processing, etc.).
Wireless communication access techniques other than the cellular communication access, e.g. wireless local area network (WLAN) access and Bluetooth access, are typically connected to (or comprised in) the application processor.
FIG. 1 illustrates a typical arrangement of a wireless communication device comprising an application processor 120 and a modem subsystem (MODEM SS) 110. The modem subsystem 110 includes an application layer 111, an Internet protocol (IP) stack 112 and a cellular communication access unit 113. The application processor 120 includes an application layer 121, an Internet protocol (IP) stack 122 and a wireless communication access unit 123 (typically implementing a wireless communication access technique which is not a cellular communication access).
The IP stack 112 of the modem subsystem and the IP stack 122 of the application processor operate separately from each other. The IP stack 122 of the application processor 120 is typically allowed to use any or both of the wireless communication access unit 123 and the cellular communication access unit 113 (as illustrated by 130) to implement wireless communication access.
On the other hand, the IP stack 112 of the modem subsystem 110 is typically only allowed to use the cellular communication access unit 113 to implement wireless communication access. Thus, an IP-based application of the modem subsystem can typically not use the wireless communication access unit 123 (e.g. WLAN, Bluetooth) for communication. This is a disadvantage since the utilization of communication resources for the IP-based application is quite inflexible. Examples of IP-based applications of the modem subsystem include VoLTE (voice over LTE (long term evolution)) and SUPL (secure user plane location).
One possible solution might include redesign of the interfaces and permissions associated with the interaction between the modem subsystem and the application processor. This is related to a huge design effort, and does not provide a solution in relation to existing designs. Furthermore, it is often desirable to combine a modem subsystem of one vendor or manufacturer with an application processor of another vendor or manufacturer, without being able to influence the design of the modem subsystem and application processor, respectively.
Therefore, there is a need for arrangements and methods to set up a connection between an application of the modem subsystem and a remote server using a wireless communication access associated with the application processor.